I suppose you saw the $10 *BILLION* fine that United Healthcare has been appealing because they illegally refused to pay claims they were legally obligated to pay? Does anybody think the other health insurance companies are any more honest? If by law I'm going to have to pay a healthcare "tax" anyhow in order to not be a deadbeat, why should I be mandated to pay it to crooks like United Healthcare who want to kill me if I get too expensive? Shoulda just gone Medicare For All and be done with it. If Medicare's good 'nuff for the prunes and the disabled, why not the rest of us?
BTW:
- Don't say we can't afford Medicare For All because "the country is bankrupt". The country isn't bankrupt. The wealth of a country is its assets, the "stuff" it has and makes, the resources it extracts, and so forth, and we have more of that than we had ten years ago, we just have fewer dollars in circulation (because so much money is sitting under mattresses rather than circulating) and thus fewer being collected as taxes (since by and large we tax money only when it changes hands and becomes "income" or "sales", not when it sits under a mattress). There's an easy way to handle that. It's called the PRINTING PRESS, and it's been around for over 600 years but for some reason people ignore it. All that the U.S. Treasury needs to do is exchange T-bills for freshly printed dollar bills at the Federal Reserve's window until sufficient dollars are in circulation, and voila, problem solved. No possibility of the Federal government not being able to pay its bills as long as it can pay them with freshly printed dollars. Actually, it's even easier than that, because it's all done *electronically* nowadays -- no paper required.
- The health plan had been worked on by Congressional staffers for over ten years, so it's not a case of nobody knowing what was in it (well, other than Congressmen, who by and large are idiots whose staffers run things for them). The problem with the health plan is that it was modeled on the Swiss health plan, and unfortunately American healthcare companies aren't as honest as the Swiss.
-- Badtux the Healthcare Penguin
Hey...you sound like one o' them modern monetary theory communists. If you don't like it, go to Russia.
ReplyDeleteThey aren't not printing money (?) because they honestly don't think it's the solution. They know perfectly well what the solutions are. But the project -- getting us accustomed to permanently high unemployment so as to drive down the costs of production to third world levels -- takes precedent.
Little things like ensuring full employment or health care for all are commie bullshit. Just ask the tea people. Better dead than red!
Badtux, don't badmouth the Mafia like that. Overall, I give them more credit for honesty than I do most Republicans or 'Baggers. People have some idea where Mafia money is coming from. They're likely a better healthcare provider than most corporations as well.
ReplyDeleteWell, Vilstef, you do have a point -- the Mafia is far more honest than the health insurance industry. The Mafia says, "your money, or your life." The health insurance industry says the same thing, but lies -- they take your money *AND* your life (if it's more profitable for them that way).
ReplyDelete- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
So how does pumping billions "into circulation" end up in my bank account for me to spend?
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't. It all goes to the pig-men. Currency injections do fuck-all for the common man.
As I've pointed out before, it's all in the details. If the freshly printed money is going to pay Social Security checks, unemployment compensation, food stamps, and other targeted areas where the recipients have a high propensity to spend, the money gets spent, and people get hired to meet the new demand. So it ends up passing through at least two people's pockets before the high and mighty can disappear it under a mattress. If, on the other hand, it's printed and given to the rich (as, say, a tax cut), you're absolutely correct -- it becomes mattress money, employing nobody.
ReplyDelete- Badtux the Propensity-to-spend Penguin